The History of (PV) Solar Cells

The term "photovoltaic" comes from the Greek (phos) meaning "light", and "voltaic", meaning electrical, from the name of the Italian physicist Volta, after whom the unit of electrical potential, the volt, is named. The photovoltaic effect was discovered in 1839 by French physicist A. E. Becquerel. The modern age of solar power technology arrived in 1954 when Bell Laboratories, experimenting with semiconductors, accidentally found that silicon doped with certain impurities was very sensitive to light. This resulted in the production of the first practical solar cells with a sunlight energy conversion efficiency of around 6 percent which were used for satellites.